


A Ruthless, Cold Heart

by junko



Series: Scatter and Howl [8]
Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 14:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3413327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renji acts without thinking; Byakuya can't act without thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ruthless, Cold Heart

The Kuchiki bodyguards backed down, leaving Renji alone with the teamster and his bundles and boxes. People coming in and out of the Western Gate gave them a wide berth, uncertain of the situation. The giant, Jidanbō, watched them over his massive shoulder. 

The teamster sat down on a crate, his head bowed. Renji piled up the scattered things the guards had dropped. The three guards hadn’t gone far—Renji could see the lot of them sitting at the window in a nearby izakaya, watching the scene while they drank beer with the money Renji’d given them to ‘take a break.’ 

“I’m going to hire a rickshaw for your stuff,” Renji said. With what, he wasn’t sure. He’d given the guards the last of his pocket change. He was going to have to hope that his rank would buy him credit.

The teamster caught Renji’s sleeve before he could turn to go. Renji stopped, waiting, but the teamster seemed to be having trouble with words. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “This is my fault. That fucking house steward found out you and I’d had words. I thought you’d squealed to him, so I told the steward what I thought of your sort. I said all you lily-livered okama could go fuck yourselves and only a weak-assed girly man would find himself….” He looked up at Renji then, briefly, before dropping his head to stare despondently at the dirt road, “… on the receiving end of unwanted attention.”

Renji grunted. Clearly, the teamster had softened his language somewhat. He seemed to have told Eishirō that Renji deserved to be raped because he was a faggot, an okama.

Of all the things Renji had been called in his lifetime, ‘okama’ didn’t even sting. And weak-assed and girly? Didn’t fit Renji in the least, so it slipped off his skin as if the teamster was talking about someone else. 

“Well,” Renji said because the teamster seemed to be waiting for something, “That was stupid. I guess you didn’t know I was dating the big boss, huh?”

With a surprised, relieved chuckle the teamster let go of Renji’s sleeve. “Gods, no. Though should’ve guessed, looking at him.”

Looking at him? Cripes on a crutch. Renji smacked the teamster upside of the head, lightly, like he would one of his soldiers. “Oi, no wonder he was tossing you out on your ass making shitty assumptions like that. Don’t make me regret helping you.”

The teamster glanced at where the hovels of Rukongai were visible through the gate and swallowed nervously. “Sorry,” he muttered. He slipped off the box and dropped to his knees and bowed his head in the dirt. “Please forgive me, sir!”

Renji couldn’t look at the teamster’s supplicating form. It was too embarrassing, and Renji had never been the sort to enjoy watching anyone grovel. “Get up,” Renji said. “You could’ve murdered my own kin and I’d never throw you out there. Kill you, sure. But, the Rukongai? No. Nobody deserves that rotten hellhole.”

As he pulled himself off the ground, Renji heard the teamster whisper, “Thank gods.”

“C’mon,” Renji said. “Byakuya’s going to kill me, but I’m going to set you up in the inn across from the Division. I’d keep you somewhere further away, but I can’t afford nothing else. I’m so fucking broke my broke is broke.” With a sigh, he continued thinking through this out loud. “Once I hire someone to haul your things, I can flash us there. Unless, you want to travel with your stuff?”

“I can pay for the rickshaw,” the teamster said. “Just tell me the name of this inn of yours and I’ll make my way there. I don’t have enough to pay for many nights, but I can take the burden off you until I can arrange things with my master.”

“Wait, you don’t belong to the house?” Renji asked.

“No, my lord is visiting. I was in charge of his horses and caravan.”

Renji nodded. “Does he know Byakuya was banishing you? Would he help you now?”

The teamster wiped the dust from his knees. “I can only hope. If Kuchiki-sama puts his foot down, I may just find myself and my family back at these gates.”

Family? They’d all be banished? Of course, they were all guilty by association. That was how justice worked. But, fuck. “Tell me you don’t have children.”

“I have three. Two girls and a boy.”

Renji hoped to fuck they weren’t already being driven from their home. He shook his head. Always so fucking hard, Byakuya was. There was never any goddamn middle ground. Seeing a passing empty rickshaw, Renji waved the driver down. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

The teamster’s usually hard face softened with gratitude. “If it wasn’t for you, Lieutenant Abarai, I’d be out there. At least inside, there are things I can try. All of those chances would have been lost once those doors closed on me.”

Renji nodded. He knew that well enough. Helping the teamster load his things, Renji bid him good-bye and wished him the best of luck.

 

#

At lunch Byakuya received three missives he’d rather not have gotten. 

First, a courier delivered note from his aunt Masama. The message was a single, crisp parchment page upon which was written a very cryptic and indecipherable: “You’ve gone too far.” 

He handed it back to the courier with a frown and the question, “She paid for your services and said nothing more?”

“The lady believed you would understand.” The courier tucked the note into the inner pocket of his kosode and bowed his head to the floor. Though the courtyard outside was covered in snow, bright slashes of light checkered the tatami flooring of Byakuya’s estate office.

“I do not,” Byakuya sighed. “Nor do I know how to reply.”

He had only just dismissed the courier when a butterfly found its way to him. When it announced itself from Central 46, Byakuya stood at attention. The butterfly disgorged its message:

“This is a courtesy announcement to Captain of the Sixth Division and Kuchiki Clan Head, Byakuya Kuchiki, from the secretary of Central 46: a fine of one million ken was levied against the accused, Lord Isoroku Takenaka for the crime of assaulting an officer. For the assault upon the personage of the peerage, Lieutenant Renji Abarai shall pay a fee of twenty million ken.”

Byakuya’s fist curled at his sides in outrage. 

One million ken. So little they thought of Renji. It didn’t even convey a mote of respect for his rank! It was, quite frankly, unconscionable that Isoroku got such a light slap of the wrist. Still, Byakuya supposed he should have anticipated it, as well as the reprisal. Clearly, Central had decided their sentences based on social rank, not military. Not a huge surprise, given that Central was composed of noblemen. Still, it galled. Could they not have judged Rukia this way, by her social standing? 

No of course they couldn’t have. That was Aizen then. These were just stupid old men and women.

Before the butterfly could drift away, Byakuya stopped it. It floated lazy circles in front of him, further infuriating him. He had to take several slow, calming breaths before he could say, “I, Byakuya Kuchiki, Captain of the Sixth Division wish to lodge a formal complaint. One million ken is a ridiculously low value to place on any man’s honor, but it is an insult to one such as Lieutenant Abarai, who has served the Gotei so capably. To suggest that my adjutant/vice-captain is worth so little is to degrade my entire division and myself. Furthermore as Abarai’s captain, I exercise my right to assume responsibility for his fee. All paperwork in regards to this matter should be delivered to the Kuchiki estate.”

With that, he dismissed the butterfly and sent it on its way.

Byakuya was just about to call for a bottle of afternoon sake, when there was knock on his door. He waited, expecting Eishirō to announce whomever it was. There was not much spiritual pressure, so he was forced to ask, “Who is it?”

“Your cousin, my lord, Kazuko Hashiji,” came a woman’s voice. “And my lady’s maids.”

Byakuya opened the door for her with an apologetic, “Am I expecting you, my lady?”

“No, I’ve come to beg leniency for a foolish man, a retainer in my service,” she said as she stepped over the threshold into his office. The lady was dressed in a resplendent red, hand-painted uchikake, a formal long-sleeved kimono. White swans took flight from behind gold-leaf bamboo and white plum blossoms. Her silken black hair hung loose, with only a single clip to hold the length of it neatly against the nape of her neck. She had with her two ladies, who settled behind her on the za-button pillows in front of Byakuya’s desk. They were dressed in more subdued blues and greens.

It was rare that Byakuya felt his office shabby or himself underdressed, but the finery of these ladies was far more suited to court than his office. 

Once he’d settled behind his desk, Lady Hashiji continued, “My retainer, a simple teamster, has a family to consider, my lord. I would never presume upon your authority, but at least spare them. There are small children.”

“Spare them what?” Byakuya asked sincerely. “I had words with your teamster, nothing more.”

“But he’s been banished, my lord. His things were packed and your bodyguards escorted him out.”

Byakuya frowned. He’d issued no such order. In fact, he’d still been trying to decide what to do with the man, given that he’d so stalwartly refused to divulge the insult he’d uttered. The only thing Byakuya could fathom was that Eishirō had taken it upon himself to banish the teamster. That was presumptuous of him, however, since banishment was the typical fate of any who stepped out of line among the Kuchiki staff, it was not entirely unreasonable for Eishirō to have anticipated that it would be Byakuya’s wish.

“I swear on my honor that I didn’t order it. But the fact remains: your man insulted me,” Byakuya said. “Why should he not be banished?”

Lady Hashiji bowed her head. “We all serve at your discretion, my lord. I can’t say that I’m surprised to hear that Machida’s mouth has been the death of him. However, I wish only the wife and children to be spared if it is within your mercy.”

“Of course it is,” Byakuya conceded. “Any order to remove them from your home will be countermanded.”

She lowered herself in a deeper bow and said, “Thank you very much, my lord. You are most kind and merciful.”

As she and her ladies bowed their way out, Byakuya felt… uneasy with the knowledge that Eishirō acted in full confidence that Byakuya would wish the most uncompromising and swift punishment for such a feeble infraction. Weighing even heavier on his mind was the uncomfortable knowledge that only a few years ago Byakuya would not even have entertained the pleas of this woman. It was, after all, customary to punish entire families for the crimes of their head.

Something in him had changed, however.

In fact, he wasn’t even comfortable knowing that the teamster had been so casually sentenced to the Rukongai—to what was, as the lady suggested, a certain death. 

Was any man’s life worth so little?

But Byakuya was in a bind. It was, in fact, the reason he’d walked away from the teamster earlier without a word, without a decision. To do nothing was no way to run a household. From birth, it’d been drilled into Byakuya that a lord brooked no disrespect or disobedience from a servant. No leeway was afforded, lest the next staff member think they could get away with the same—or more. The rules applied to everyone. No exceptions made. No excuses brooked. All or nothing.

But Byakuya’s perfect unyieldingness had proved a downfall when faced with Rukia’s execution. Renji had tried to bend him; instead Byakuya’d broken on Ichigo Kurosaki’s blade. It had taken the announcement of Aizen’s perversion of justice for Byakuya to release his stranglehold on upholding the law.

He’d learned something in theory that fateful day, but in practice…? Byakuya didn’t know how to deal with shades of gray. Should he rescind Eishirō’s banishment order of the teamster? Or was that too soft? Was there some middle-ground punishment he should have meted out instead? Should Byakuya have had the teamster beaten or his tongue cut out or… or what?

Unable to parse the right answer, he’d walked away. Only to find his house steward acting on behalf of the man he once was.

A man he no longer wished to be.

And yet… this new man was one he didn’t yet entirely know _how_ to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go to Josey (cestus) for her usual typo spotting and general help. This is a shorter installment than usual, but the symmetry of it was too perfect. (Also the teamster finally coughs up his insult).
> 
> If you're curious about my usage of the word "okama," the Urban Dictionary has this for you: [okama](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=okama). I was super-happy to discover it was in use in Edo Period Japan.
> 
> Edited to add: secondary note. The way I'm doing money is at the current exchange rate of yen (the SS's ken) to the American dollar. So, according to Central 46, Renji's virtue is worth just a little over $8,000 US dollars. Meanwhile, Renji is expected to cough up approximately $50,000 US dollars for having used his reiatsu to make Isoroku faint.


End file.
